Editing Narrow-gauge railway (section)

==History==

=== Early hand-worked lines ===
[[Image:DeReMetallicaShaft.jpg|thumb|right|upright|alt=Woodcut of a mine with three shafts|1556 woodcut from ''[[De re metallica]]'', showing a narrow-gauge railway in a mine]]

The earliest recorded railway appears in [[Georgius Agricola]]'s 1556 ''[[De re metallica]]'', which shows a mine in Bohemia with a railway of about {{Track gauge|2ft|lk=on}} gauge. During the 16th century, railways were primarily restricted to hand-pushed, narrow-gauge lines in mines throughout Europe. In the 17th century, [[mine railway]]s were extended to provide transportation above ground. These lines were [[industrial railway|industrial]], connecting mines with nearby transportation points (usually canals or other waterways). These railways were usually built to the same narrow gauge as the mine railways from which they developed.<ref name="WHITESNELL">{{cite book |title=Narrow Gauge Railways of the British Isles |author1=Whitehouse, Patrick  |author2=Snell, John B.  |name-list-style=amp |year=1984 |publisher=David & Charles |isbn=0-7153-0196-9}}</ref>

=== Introduction of steam ===
The world's first [[steam locomotive]], built in 1802 by [[Richard Trevithick]] for the Coalbrookdale Company, ran on a {{Track gauge|3ft|lk=on}} [[plateway]]. The first commercially successful steam locomotive was [[Matthew Murray]]'s [[Salamanca (locomotive)|Salamanca]] built in 1812 for the {{Track gauge|4ft 1in|lk=on}} [[Middleton Railway]] in [[Leeds]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Anthony |last=Dawson |title=Before Rocket: The Steam Locomotive up to 1829 |publisher=Gresley |date=17 June 2020}}</ref> Salamanca was also the first [[Rack railway|rack-and-pinion]] locomotive. During the 1820s and 1830s, a number of industrial narrow-gauge railways in the United Kingdom used steam locomotives. In 1842, the first narrow-gauge steam locomotive outside the UK was built for the {{Track gauge|1100mm}}-gauge Antwerp-Ghent Railway in Belgium.<ref name=ransom>{{cite book |first=P.J.G. |last=Ransom |authorlink=P. J. G. Ransom |title=Narrow Gauge Steam – Its origins and worldwide development |publisher=Oxford Publishing Co. |year=1996 |isbn=0-86093-533-7}}</ref> The first use of steam locomotives on a public, passenger-carrying narrow-gauge railway was in 1865, when the [[Ffestiniog Railway]] introduced passenger service after receiving its first locomotives two years earlier.<ref name=QUI>{{Quine-FR}}</ref>

=== Industrial use ===
Many narrow-gauge railways were part of industrial enterprises and served primarily as [[industrial railway]]s, rather than general carriers. Common uses for these industrial narrow-gauge railways included mining, logging, construction, tunnelling, quarrying, and conveying agricultural products. Extensive narrow-gauge networks were constructed in many parts of the world; 19th-century mountain logging operations often used narrow-gauge railways to transport logs from mill to market. Significant [[sugarcane]] railways still operate in Cuba, Fiji, Java, the Philippines, and Queensland, and narrow-gauge railway equipment remains in common use for building tunnels.

=== Introduction of internal combustion ===

In 1897, a manganese mine in the [[Lahn]] valley in Germany was using two [[benzine]]-fueled locomotives with single cylinder [[internal combustion engines]] on the 500mm gauge tracks of their [[mine railway]]; these locomotives were made by the Deutz Gas Engine Company (''Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz''), now [[Deutz AG]].<ref>A Benzine Lgocomotive for use in Mines, [https://books.google.com/books?id=1fo9AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA388 The Petroleum Industrial and Technical Review], vol. 2, no. 68 (23 June 1900); page 388.</ref><ref>Benzine Locomotive, [https://books.google.com/books?id=H0c_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA532 English Mechanic and World of Science], No. 1713 (21 January 1898); pages 532–533.</ref> Another early use of internal combustion was to power a narrow-gauge locomotive was in 1902. [[Francis Claude Blake|F. C. Blake]] built a 7&nbsp;hp petrol locomotive for the [[Richmond Main Sewerage Board]] sewage plant at [[Mortlake]]. This {{TrackGauge|2ft 9in}} gauge locomotive was probably the third petrol-engined locomotive built.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Industrial Railway Record |number=236 |date=March 2019 |first=Dan |last=Quine |author-link=Dan Quine |title=F.C. Blake and the Mortlake Tramways |publisher=the Industrial Railway Society}}</ref>

=== First World War and later ===
Extensive narrow-gauge [[trench railways|rail systems]] served the front-line trenches of both sides in [[World War I]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Narrow gauge to no man's land: U.S. Army 60 cm gauge railways of the First World War in France |first=Richard |last=Dunn |publisher=Benchmark Publications |date=1 January 1990}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Railways at War |first=J. N. |last=Westwood
|publisher=Howell-North Books |date=1980}}</ref> They were a short-lived military application, and after the war the surplus equipment created a small boom in European narrow-gauge railway building.